Sverdlovsk pension fund official jailed for 10 years for bribery

December 27, 2011, 13:56 UTC+3Sergei Dubinkin is sentenced to ten years in a maximum security penitentiary for taking a 36.9-million-rouble bribe

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Photo ITAR-TASS

YEKATERINBURG, December 27 (Itar-Tass) — A court in the Sverdlovsk region on Tuesday sentenced manager of the regional branch of the Pension Fund Sergei Dubinkin to ten years in a maximum security penitentiary for taking a 36.9-million-rouble bribe.

The prosecutor was unable to prove Dubinkin's involvement in bankruptcy of the VEFK-URAL bank, the court's press service told Itar-Tass.

Another defendant in the case was chairwoman of the board of Bank VEFK-Ural Olga Chechushkova, accused of abuse of office.

The criminal case was opened by the results of the check supervised by the PGO department in the Ural Federal District, PGO spokeswoman Marina Gridneva earlier told Tass.

"It has been ascertained that Dubinkin, in gross violation of the requirements of federal legislation on mandatory keeping the fund's money at Bank of Russia offices, opened an account at Uralo-Sibirsky Bank of Social Development (later renamed to Bank VEFK-Ural private company), to which he illegally transferred funds entrusted to him on a regular basis.

"As a result, the bank used multi-million sums intended for the timely payment of allowances and pensions to dozens of thousands of Ural pensioners, for its commercial needs and financial operations, making them part of its floating assets.

"The manager took bribes worth 500,000 to 600,000 roubles monthly, as payment for the opportunity of illegal use of the fund money, whose sum on the bank account averaged 1.5 billion roubles.

"The aggregate sum of bribes reached 36.9 million roubles and 50,000 dollars; one-third of bribes was transferred to his private account at a bank registered in Cyprus," the spokeswoman said.

Dubinin's accomplice, Olga Chechushkova, chairwoman of the board of Bank VEFK-Ural, used the funds to extend loans to eight affiliated companies that had no settlements accounts at the above bank, registered in St.Petersburg.

"As a result of this fraudulent scheme, the Pension Fund money worth 955.8 million roubles was not returned to the bank, the interest rates for money use were not paid, which resulted in the bankruptcy of the loan institution in 2009," Gridneva said.

It was also ascertained that the chairwoman illegally used her office powers to place her own money on bank accounts under privileged terms in order to engage in foreign currency exchange operation at an advantageous rate, thus causing a 21-million-rouble damage to the loan institution.

The defendants' property was arrested. Dubinkin was arrested in November 2009, and Chechushkova - in July 2009.